Deer can be found all across Georgia, from the hustle and bustle of Georgia's largest urban areas to the most remote corner of a North Georgia mountaintop or South Georgia swamp. However, some areas merit hunters' special attention. Those may be consistent producers year after year, or may offer opportunities overlooked by most.

Let's draw a thumbnail sketch of what Georgia deer hunters can expect this upcoming season.

It's hard to appreciate where you're going unless you know where you've been. Whitetail deer management in Georgia has been a huge success story. It wasn't so long ago that even sighting a deer was a rare event, but with reintroduction efforts and modern game management techniques, things began to improve to the point that in 1970, Georgia deer hunters were putting in an average of 41 days to harvest a deer. The herd continued to grow and by 2001, that number had declined to a mere 13 days.

Charlie Killmaster is a Wildlife Resources Division wildlife biologist tasked with keeping up with the status of deer statewide. "The number of deer hunters and the deer harvest are starting to stabilize after decreasing over the last few years," he said. "The deer population peaked statewide in the mid-to-late 1990s at approximately 1.4 million, higher than any point in history. As the number of deer peaked, so did the number of deer hunters. An estimated 510,000 hunters were taking to the woods during the peak. As the deer population has been brought down to a more reasonable level, hunter numbers responded accordingly as the more casual deer hunters dropped out.

"What we have now is a reasonable deer population density and a more quality herd through a combination of voluntary restraint among hunters protecting young bucks, statewide antler restrictions, and widespread acceptance of quality deer management.

"My predictions for the future," he continued, "are that hunter numbers will stabilize at some point, as will the deer herd on hunted lands. Non-hunted properties, especially urban and suburban areas, will continue to have overabundance issues, but will hopefully have fewer problems as deer management education increases in these areas. I expect the quality of the herd to increase for a few more years and then stabilize as more hunters take an interest in quality management and education about proper quality management increases."

Georgia is a large state with diverse habitats, so comparing the deer hunting in the North Georgia mountains and that in South Georgia's river bottoms is as mistaken as comparing apples and oranges. To make the task easier, let's break down the state following the seven WRD Game Management geographical regions.

REGION 1
Region 1 covers northwest Georgia. Included in this region are the Ridge and Valley, the western edge of the Blue Ridge, and the Piedmont geophysical regions. There is some pretty good deer habitat in that mix, but a whole lot of people too, which means more competition from other hunters.

The state-managed wildlife management areas in this region offer some good hunting, along with some national forest land outside of the WMA system.

Two WMAs that have a proven track record of producing deer in the Ridge and Valley are Berry College WMA in Floyd County and Crockford-Pigeon Mountain WMA in Walker County. Berry College firearms hunters had an 18 percent success ratio last season and hunters at Crockford-Pigeon Mountain had an 11 percent firearms success rate.